Ghosts and Scholars: Ghost Stories in the Tradition of M. R. James

BROTHER JOHN’S BEQUEST Arthur Gray

Tedious Brief Tales of Granta and Gramarye was published in 1919 by the Cambridge firm of William Heffer & Son, and it is now a very scarce book. The author, who called himself ‘Ingulphus’, was Arthur Gray (1852–1940), the Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, from 1912 until his death. All but three of the ten ‘tedious brief tales’ are ghost stories, and eight are set in Jesus College during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Another goes further back to 1431 when the nunnery of St Radegund occupied the buildings which were later to become the College. The brilliantly evoked historical setting and Gray’s playful sense of humour combine to create an unusual book of considerable charm, as this story demonstrates.

On a certain morning in the summer of the year 1510 John Eccleston, Doctor in Divinity and Master of Jesus College in Cambridge, stood at the door of his lodge looking into the cloister court. There was a faint odour of extinguished candles in the air, and a bell automatically clanked in unison with its bearer’s step. It was carried by a young acolyte, who lagged in the rear of a small band of white-robed figures who were just disappearing from sight at the corner of the passage leading to the entrance court. They were the five Fellows of the newly-constituted College.

As they disappeared, the Master, with much deliberation, spat into the cloister walk.

To spit behind a man’s back might be accounted a mark of disgust, contempt, malice—at least of disapproval. Such were not the feelings of Dr Eccleston.

It is a fact known all over the world, Christian and heathen, that visitants from the unseen realm cannot endure to be spat at. The Master’s action was prophylactic. For supernatural visitings of the transitory, curable kind the rites of the Church are, no doubt, efficacious. In inveterate cases it is well to leave no remedy untried.

With bell, book and candle the Master and Fellows had just completed a lustration of the lodge. The bell had clanked in the Founder’s Chamber and in the Master’s oratory. The Master’s bedchamber had been well soused with holy water. The candle had explored dark places in cupboards and under the stairs. If It was there before it was almost inconceivable that It remained there now. But one cannot be too careful.

Two days previously a funeral had taken place in the College. It was a shabby affair. The deceased, John Baldwin, late a brother of the dissolved Hospital of St John, was put away in an obscure part of the College churchyard—now the Master’s garden—behind some elder bushes which grew in the corner bounded by the street and the ‘chimney’. The mourners were the grave-digger, the sexton and the parson of All Saints’ Church. Though brother John had died in a college chamber the society of Jesus marked its reprobation of his manner of living by absenting themselves from his obsequies.

Brother John had been a disappointment: uncharitable persons might say he was a fraud. He had got into the College by false pretences. In life he had disgraced it by his excesses, and, when he was dead, he had perpetrated a mean practical joke on the society. It is not well for a man in religious orders to joke when he is dead.

How did it come that brother John Baldwin, late Granger of the Augustinian Hospital of Saint John, died in Jesus College?

The Hospital of Saint John was dissolved in the year 1510, to make room for the new college designed by the Lady Margaret. Bishops of Ely for three centuries and more had been its patrons and visitors, and dissolute James Stanley, bishop in 1510, fought stoutly for its maintenance. But circumstances were too strong for the bishop. The ancient Hospital was hopelessly bankrupt. The buildings were ruinous: there was not a doit in the treasury chest: the household goods were pawned to creditors in the town. The Master, William Tomlyn, had disappeared, none knew whither, and only two brethren were left in the place. One of them was John Baldwin: the other was the Infirmarer, a certain Bartholomew Aspelon.

On the eve of the dissolution, bishop Stanley wrote a letter to the Master and Fellows of the other Cambridge society of which he was a visitor, namely Jesus College. He commended to their charitable care brother John Baldwin, an aged man of godly conversation who was disposed to bestow his worldly goods for the comfort and sustenance of the Master and Fellows in consideration of their maintenance of him in College during the remaining years of his earthly pilgrimage. It was a not uncommon practice in those days for monasteries and colleges to accept as inmates persons, clerical or lay, who wished to withdraw from the world and were willing, either during life or by testamentary arrangements, to guarantee their hosts against pecuniary loss.

Drawing by E. Joyce Shillington Scales

Report said that, though the Hospital was penniless, brother John in his private circumstances was well-to-do and even affluent. It did not befit the Master and Fellows to enquire how he had come by his wealth. They were wretchedly poor, and the bishop’s certificate of character was all that could be desired. They thanked the bishop for his prudent care for their interests and covenanted to give the religious man a domicile in the College with allowance for victuals, barber, laundress, wine, wax and all other things necessary for celebrating Divine service, as to any Fellow of the College. Brother John promptly transferred himself to his new quarters which were in a room called ‘the loft’, on the top floor above the Founder’s Chamber in the Master’s lodge.

The Master and Fellows were disappointed in brother John’s luggage. It consisted simply of two brass-bound boxes, heavy but unquestionably small, even for a man of religion. An encouraging feature about them was that they bore the monogram of Saint John’s Hospital. Brother John and his former co-mate of the Hospital, Bartholomew Aspelon, constantly affirmed that the missing Master, William Tomlyn, had decamped with the contents of the Hospital treasury. But the society of Jesus hoped that they were not telling the truth. Brother John kept the two boxes under his bed. They were always carefully locked, but brother John threw out vague hints that their contents were destined for a princely benefaction to his hospitable entertainers.

In other respects brother John’s equipment was not such as would betoken a man of wealth. Rather it savoured of monastical austerity. His only suit of clothing was ancient, and even greasy. It was never changed, night or day. Brother John was apparently under a religious obligation to abstain from washing.

As a man of godly conversation brother John was unfortunate in his personal appearance. It was presumably a stroke of paralysis which had drawn up one side of his face and correspondingly depressed the other. His mouth was a diagonal compromise with the rest of his features. One eye was closed, and the other was bleared and watery. His nose was red, but the rest of his face was of a parchment colour.

Brother John was an elderly person, and continued ill-health unfortunately confined him to his chamber, above the Master’s. He expressed a deep regret that he could not share the society of the Fellows in the Hall at their meals of oatmeal porridge, salt fish, and thin ale. His distressing ailments necessitated a sustaining diet of capons and oysters, supplied to him in his chamber by the College. He was equally debarred from attending services in the Chapel, but the wine with which the society had covenanted to supply him was punctually consumed at the private offices which he performed in his chamber. A suitable pecuniary compensation was made to him on the ground that his domestic arrangements rendered the services of the College laundress unnecessary.

Bartholomew Aspelon, who lodged in an alehouse in the town, was the constant and affectionate attendant at brother John’s sick bed: for, indeed, he seldom got out of it. From a neighbouring tavern he brought to him abundant supplies of the ypocras and malmsey wine which were requisite for the maintenance of the invalid’s failing strength. Brother Bartholomew was an individual of a merry countenance and gifted with cheerful song. In the sick room the Fellows would often hear him trolling a drinking catch, to which the invalid joined a quavering note. So constant and familiar was the lay that John Bale, one of the Fellows, remembered it thirty years afterwards, and put it in the mouth of a roystering monk whom he introduced as one of the characters in his play, King Johan. The words ran thus:

The invasion of the college silences by this unusual concert was marked by the Fellows with growing disapproval: and they were not comforted when they discovered that that the new robe which they had contracted to supply to their guest had been pledged to the host of the Sarazin’s Head in part payment of an account rendered. But they possessed their souls in patience as they noted that the health of their venerable guest was declining with obvious rapidity. With some insistence they pointed out to the Master the desirability of having a prompt and clear understanding about brother John’s testamentary dispositions. Dr Eccleston was entirely of the Fellows’ mind in the matter.

One evening in June, some three months after brother John had begun his residence in the College, it seemed to Dr Eccleston that the time had come to sound him about his intentions. The patient was very low, and brother Bartholomew was much depressed. With inkhorn and pen the Master went upstairs to the sick man’s chamber. Nuncupatory wills were in those days accepted as legal obligations, and the Master was minded that he would not leave brother John until he had obtained, from his dictation, a statement of his intentions as to the disposal of his goods.

Obviously brother John’s mind was wandering when the Master entered the room, for he greeted his arrival with a snatch of the old scurvy tune,

and feebly added, ‘Art there, bully Bartholomew? Bear me thy hand to the bottle, for I am dry.’

‘Brother John, brother John,’ said the Master, ‘bestir thee, and think of thy state. It is time for thee to consider of thy world’s gear and how thou wilt bestow it according to thy promise to our poor company, for their tendance of thee.’ Brother John raised himself in his bed and opened his serviceable eye. Something like a grin puckered up his sloping mouth. ‘Art thou of that counsel, goodman Doctor?’ said he: ‘then have with thee. I were a knave if I did not thank you for your kindness, and, trust me, ye shall not be the losers for your pains. Take quill and write. I will dictate my will in two fillings of thy pen. Write’: and the Master wrote.

‘To the Master and Fellows of Jesus College I give and bequeath that chest that lieth beneath my bed and is marked with a great letter A, and all that is in it. To brother Bartholomew Aspelon, late of the Hospital of Saint John, in like manner I bequeath that other chest that is marked B.’

‘Is that all?’ asked the Master. ‘Gogswouns, it is all I have,’ said brother John. ‘Yet stay, good Master. Nothing for nothing is a safe text. Thou shalt write it as a condition, on pain of forfeiting my bequest, that ye shall bury me in the aisle of your church, immediately before the High Altar: that ye shall keep my obit, or anniversary, with placebo and dirige and mass of requiem; and that once each week a Fellow that is a priest shall pray and sing for the soul of John Baldwin, the benefactor of the College. Is it rehearsed, master doctor?’ ‘It is written,’ said the Master. ‘Ite, missa est,’ said the invalid, ‘and fetch me a stoup of small ale, good Master.’

A few days later John Baldwin made his unimproving, unregretted end. Brother Bartholomew carried off his portion of the legacy. The other chest was deposited on the table in the Founder’s Chamber and opened by the Master before the assembled Fellows.

It contained half a dozen bricks, a fair quantity of straw and shavings, and nothing else—nothing except a small scrap of torn and dirty paper at the bottom of the box. With one voice the Master and Fellows decreed that their unworthy guest should be buried in the least respectable portion of the churchyard. Which thing was done, as I have already mentioned.

Of course the dirty paper under the straw was scrutinized by the Master and Fellows. But it was of no importance. It looked like a deed or a will, in which the deceased, in return for nursing in sickness, proposed to give some unspecified property to his disreputable friend, Aspelon, and apparently stipulated that he should be buried in the choir of the Hospital chapel. But it was not witnessed: it had obviously been torn up, and all that was left of it was the part on the scribe’s right hand. It ran thus:

The last word, if rightly read, was unintelligible.

But the College had by no means done with brother John. On the evening after his burial, as the Master and Fellows were leaving the Chapel, their steps were suddenly arrested as they heard the familiar Wassail stave raised in a thin tuneless voice. It came from the open window of the deceased brother, and unquestionably the voice was not Aspelon’s. In consternation they listened till it died ineffectually away in an attempted chorus strain. After brief deliberation they resolved to visit the ‘loft’ in a body—Master, Fellows, ‘disciples’ and servants—and see what this thing might mean. They found the place as blank and silent as it remained when the deceased had been taken out to his burial. But before they reached the stair-foot in their descent the thin piping strain fell on their ears again, and this time none were bold enough to go back. After that, at all times of night and day, the interminable ditty was fitfully renewed, and panic held the College. At night the ‘disciples’ huddled in one room, and the Fellows lay two in a bed.

Unfortunately for Dr Eccleston, he was condemned to the solitude of the lodge, deserted even by his famulus, the sizar who attended him. He sat up all night and studied works of divinity, in the hope that theology, if it did not put the songster to rout, would at least distract his own thoughts from the devilish roundelay in the garret above his head. On the second night he began to congratulate himself on the success of his experiment, for the singer relapsed into silence. In his exhaustion he might have slept, but that the door of his study had a gusty habit of flying open unexpectedly and closing with a bang. He had actually begun to drowse over his folio when a sharp pressure on his right shoulder aroused him. Hastily turning his head he saw the papery countenance of the dead brother gazing at him with all the affection that one eye could testify, the chin planted on the Master’s shoulder, and the mouth slewed into a simulation of innocent mirth. Dr Eccleston read no more divinity that night.

Early next morning a College meeting was summoned by the Master. It was resolved by the unanimous voice of the society that brother John’s remains should be exhumed and re-interred in the middle of the chancel aisle, in accordance with the stipulation of the deceased: and there was no delay in carrying the resolution into effect. The Master also insisted that the whole society should help in the purgation of his lodge and the loft above it, in accordance with the ritual of the Church in that case applying: and this too was incontinently done, as I have already described. The consideration of the performance of the rest of the contract entered into by the Master with the late brother was deferred until it should be ascertained how far the deceased was satisfied with the measures already adopted.

Whether John Baldwin acquiesced in this somewhat lame execution of his wishes, or whether his perturbed spirit was laid to rest by the rites of exorcism it is impossible to say. It is quite certain that he troubled the College no more.

But in the afternoon following his re-interment an incident happened which possibly had some connection with the placation of his shade. Bartholomew Aspelon had not attended brother John’s funeral in the churchyard. In truth, he was filled with a moral resentment at his late friend’s lack of feeling and good taste which was only equalled by that of the society of Jesus: and the motive was the same. On opening the treasure chest bequeathed to him he had found it filled with bricks and straw, just like the other. If the Fellows were indignant Bartholomew was more so: for, from private sources of information which he possessed as a member of the dissolved Hospital, he was assured that brother John had prospered in its service to the extent of £200, at the least, and he was profoundly convinced that the whole sum had gone into the treasury of Jesus College. Under the straw he had found a morsel of paper, which was, indeed, too fragmentary to give any connected clue to its drift, but which, nevertheless, rather plainly indicated on the part of the deceased an intention of bequeathing to the College a certain treasure, the whereabouts of which, owing to the imperfection of the document, were not stated. He was confirmed in his interpretation of the manuscript by the honourable interment given to brother John’s remains in the Chapel.

Filled with resentment at the ingratitude of the patient whom he had so tenderly nursed and at the duplicity of the ‘dons’ who had robbed him of the reward of his devoted service, Bartholomew sought the Master’s lodge. He used no language of studied courtesy in representing to Dr Eccleston the nature of his grievance: and the Master, whose temper was severely tried by want of sleep and the disagreeable nature of the interment ceremony in which he had just unwillingly participated, replied with equal vehemence.

‘Ye are robbers all,’ cried Bartholomew: ‘you cheated him in his weakness into signing his property away from the friend who smoothed his pillow in his dying hours.’

‘Thou naughty knave,’ retorted the Master, ‘talk not to me of bricks and straw. It was gold that was contained in thy box, and the devil knows by what scurvy arts thou didst cozen us of our promised reward. His own paper convicts thee of the fraudulent attempt to get him to will his goods to thee. See what he left in the bottom of our box.’ And the Master threw the scrap above-transcribed upon the table. ‘Take it and never let me see thy rogue’s face again.’

Brother Bartholomew leaped in his skin as he grabbed the document. He made no ceremony of leave-taking, but bolted down the stairs. When he got into the cloister outside he took from his pouch a dingy scrap of paper, which was the fellow of that which the Master had thrown to him. What he read on it was this:

Then brother Bartholomew put the two pieces together, and it was thus that he translated the continuous lines:

Of what further pertains to brother John Baldwin and his bequest I have no more to say than that his name is not included in the Form for the Commemoration of Benefactors of Jesus College. Also that for twenty years after the events here recorded a cheerful individual, in a lay habit, might be seen, seated of custom on the ale-bench at the Sarazin’s Head. He drank of the best, paid in cash and never lacked for money. He could tell a good tale and he sang a good song. His Wassail song was always in request at the Sarazin’s Head.